BROOKINGS CITES MEASURE R AND THE AMERICA FAST FORWARD INITIATIVE IN TOP 10 MOST INNOVATIVE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES

posted by Gloria Ohland | 245mp
January 22, 2013

The Brookings Institution applauds LA County, LA Mayor Villaraigosa and the business-labor-environmental coalition that championed Measure R and also won approval from Congress for the low-interest TIFIA loan program that is helping to fund the Crenshaw Line and may soon fund other projects. Los Angeles was one of ten regions cited in Brookings' "Top Ten Most Innovative Economic Development Initiatives."

TIFIA was part of the "America Fast Forward" proposal to enable the federal government to reward regions like LA, Denver, and Phoenix that step up to help themselves by providing a local revenue stream to leverage outside investment. Notes Brookings, "TIFIA provides flexible, low-cost credit assistance backed by the future sales tax revenues, leveraging outside investment worth 30 times the federal contribution."

Metro is now working with Congress on the second half of the America Fast Forward Proposal: a new class of tax-credit bonds for transportation. Congress has already authorized qualified tax credit bond programs for forestry conservation, renewable energy projects, energy conservation, qualified zone academies and new school construction.

Brookings calls it "Bottom-up Federalism: Local-Driven Federal Infrastructure Reform" and also notes: "To match the demands of the next economy, in an era of fiscal constraints, effective governance requires both leveraging local resources to support transformative investments with innovative finance and public-private partnerships, and promoting greater collaboration across state and municipal lines, given the real geography of market activity."

Also in the "Governance" category of this Top 10, Brookings awards California, Oregon and Washington for the West Coast Infrastructure Exchange, a tri-state partnership of government, community, business and nonprofit groups that are working to strengthen project management and financing for performance-based public-private projects that cross jurisdictions.